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пятница, 10 февраля 2017 г.

Get the lead out: Hundreds suffer poisoning from bullet fragments in their bodies

Researchers
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have studied
elevated-lead levels in gunshot wound victims. (iStock)
Hundreds
of people with bullet fragments lodged in their bodies have suffered
lead poisoning from the slugs, including several people who have
extremely elevated levels of the highly toxic metal in their blood,
health authorities reported Thursday.
Researchers from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 457 gunshot-wound
victims with elevated levels of lead in their blood when they looked at
reports from 41 states between 2003 and 2012. Seventeen people had blood
lead levels more than 16 times the limit recommended by the CDC.
Before
the survey, fewer than 100 cases of lead toxicity from bullet fragments
had been reported in the medical literature. A 2012 study in Colombia
called lead poisoning from bullet fragments “an underdiagnosed condition
that can be fatal if not recognized.”
More typically, workplace
exposure is the culprit when lead is found in adults. There were more
than 145,000 cases of lead toxicity overall in the same period, the
researchers found.
“Retained bullet fragments are an infrequently
reported, but important, cause of lead toxicity,” the team, headed by
Debora Weiss, reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report.
That is especially true for 16- to 24-year-olds, who
comprised more than 42 percent of those with lead poisoning from bullet
fragments. Men accounted for 83.5 percent of the cases. There are about
115,000 gunshot wounds in the United States each year, 70 percent of
which are not fatal. Sometimes it is difficult for surgeons to retrieve
every fragment, and a decision is made to leave them in the body if they
pose no immediate threat.
Public health officials say there is
no safe level for lead in the blood, but the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health considers anything more than 5 micrograms
per deciliter of blood as elevated. At more than 10 micrograms, lead
can cause hypertension, kidney ailments, cognitive deficits,
miscarriages and low-birth weight infants, the report notes. Researchers
said they found 17 adults with blood-lead levels over 80 micrograms,
including a few with levels over 200 micrograms.
Blood-lead levels in children spiked in Flint, Mich., in 2014 after the city switched its water source from
Lake Huron to the Flint River in a cost-cutting move. Five percent of
children younger than 6 years old who were tested during that time had
blood-lead levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter.
Lead can also harm wildlife. In 2013, California became the first state to ban lead in hunting ammunition to protect California condors that were consuming the metal in carrion that makes up their diet in the wild.